Free Without Warning by John Birmingham

it away.
    In the space of less than three seconds she stood over her would-be killers. The pistol was already cocked. Two loud, flat cracks rang out and she finished off the prone figure by the wall. A slight shift in stance as she swung around and double-tapped the man at her feet, even though his life was already bleeding out of him. Almost no thought went into the actions. She hadn’t indulged herself in the luxury of conscious thought since the two of them had burst into the ER. She had simply reacted, her mind and body runningalong tracks that had been laid down for her by thousands of hours of training.
    “No!”
screamed a voice. Monique’s.
“What are you? You fucking monster!” I’m Echelon,
thought Caitlin, as she took the weapon from the lifeless hand of the first man she had killed. The ER was unnaturally still all around her. No one had yet recovered from the shock of such extreme and unexpected violence. Her gun hand seemed to float toward the weeping French girl. A slow, inhuman movement, machinelike in its lack of compassion. Monique was no longer an asset, a resource to be exploited for the mission. She was a loose end.

Guantánamo Bay naval base, Cuba
    The Cuban officer’s salute was crisp, and his posture ramrod-straight, but his eyes betrayed confusion and anxiety. Musso returned the salute before dropping into a more relaxed posture. The two men stood in a bare office, borrowed for the meeting. Until two days ago it had been the domain of a navy lieutenant, but he had transferred back home, and nobody had yet arrived to fill his berth.
And five’ll get you fifty that nobody ever will,
Musso thought bleakly.
    “Major,” he said, to open the discussion, “welcome to Guantánamo Naval Station.”
    Major Eladio Núñez bobbed his head up and down in an agitated fashion.
    “Would you care to sit?” asked Musso.
    “Sí.
Thank you.”
    Núñez dropped into a chair with some relief. His aide, a captain, remained at attention by the door. Lieutenant Colonel Stavros stood at ease by the cheap government-issue desk on which Musso had leaned back. Outside, the base was locked down on its highest alert. Two marines in full battle rattle double-timed past. They were ready. The question was simple enough. Ready for what?
    “This … ah … this is very difficult… you understand?” said Núñez. He leaned forward, his hands rubbing together nervously. “We do not… I don’t…”
    “You’ve lost contact with Havana,” Musso offered.
    “Sí.
But more than that. Something strange. A few miles to the north of my position. A sort of heat curtain. We can see the land behind it, through a haze, and it looks normal. But nothing, or no people, move there. There is a town, not far beyond the line, on the road north. Nothing. Not a soul.”
    Musso nodded. Núñez was deeply agitated, but Musso was not so stupid as to make any judgments about the man’s character on that basis. The major had been chosen by the Cuban military to face off a mortal enemy squatting on the very soil of his motherland. He would be neither a fool nor a coward.
    “Have you sent anybody in?” he asked. “To investigate.”
    The captain standing by the door moved fractionally. A tic flickered under one eye. Núñez nodded.
    “Sí.
Yes. I send in some scouts. They appear to, uh, to disappear in the heat haze. It was very thick, very powerful, no? Near the effect? It seemed much hotter. And so my men they walk in, slowly. They …”
    He groped for the right word.
    “They shimmer? Yes? In the haze? And they are gone.”
    “Just gone?” asked Stavros.
    Núñez nodded vigorously. “Yes. Sometimes the haze seems to shift, like a curtain, just for a second, and we can see farther down the road, say two hundred meters. It is like looking into a fish tank, yes, in a restaurant? It is a very strange sight. Like a curtain of air? I do not see how that can be but it… ah …” He rolled his hands in a helpless gesture, seeking the